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Comment by anthonyb | Hacker News Reader

Not really a shallow analysis, but they don't make their point particularly well. I think bringing in "sacrificing your kids to make a point" is unnecessary linkbait.

The basic issue for me is that western democracies and the US are founded on principles of equality (qv. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_men_are_created_equal).

If public education is left to rot (as well as transport and healthcare and everything else), but the rich are allowed to buy their way out, surely this is a subversion of the principles that your country is founded on?

Edit: wow, you've added a hundred links since I replied. Perhaps you could condense your point down into a couple of paragraphs?

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There's no inherent conflict between rich people having better stuff and equal rights. For better or for worse, the American belief on this subject is that opportunity to better one's economic situation should be equal, but that it's fair for quality of life to be dependent on some amount of success in taking these opportunities.

That aside, though, I think the point is that any reasonable person with kids will do whatever they can to bring them up in the best way possible, with whatever resources they have. Maybe the US public school system is poorly executed but well-intentioned; maybe it is not even that. It doesn't matter; it is what it is. There's no shame in not participating in it if you have a choice (participation is not what it's short on!). Maybe we will have amazing education for every US child one day, but who knows when or what form that will take, or what will drive it. Private school may be a luxury, but you don't have to be rich to home-school, it's a valid and attractive option for many parents in areas that are cheap to live in but have terrible schools.

I disagree with that pretty strongly - if you have time, go and read the NYTimes link that I posted below.

Their point is that many children don't have that opportunity, since they're already well behind by the time that they start school. And a large part of the difference in school performance can be explained by differences in the students economic background and family life.

This doesn't square with the equal opportunity / everyone's equal that the US seems to be so fond of.

I agree that "equal opportunities" is a myth. People grow up with vast differences in the advantages they've been given.

However, deserving equal things doesn't mean you get equal things. See the fact that people have different amounts of money from each other, and have for thousands of years. We celebrate the ability of individuals to better their life situation as much as possible, and we don't shame rich people for spending money to give their kids a better education than the government can provide.

The US public school system is simply an attempt to give all children in the entire country access to some education. It would be great if it was a gleaming example of delivering quality on a large scale, up to the standard of, say, McDonald's, but alas it is not.

Quora answerers did a better job than me making the point about raising your kids: http://www.quora.com/Education/If-you-send-your-kid-to-priva...

The problem with public education is that it isn't typically shaped by free market principals and there's little effective competition. Competition drives innovation. Parents are generally the best arbiters of success because they care about their kids more than anyone else. Adam Smith, when applied to education can have dramatic results, yet public schools are typically about as efficient as a Pentagon procurement office.

principles, not principals.

Which, thinking about it, is an even more condensed version of my argument above.

Competition is all very well, but if you're talking about the education of a country, you can't very well just chuck out half the students and/or schools because they failed the competition, particularly when the competition is "rigged" from the start:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/...

Finland has the best school system in the world and they aren't driven by the free market.

The Soviet Union was based on equality too. The problem is that some bureaucracies produce an equally shitty product for everyone.

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